Speaking at Cummins’ Annual Meeting earlier this month, Rumsey said the company is well positioned to take a leadership role on climate action, helping customers in the transition to cleaner power sources.

PLANET 2050, Cummins environmental sustainability strategy, has product, facility and community goals timed to 2030 and aspirations timed to 2050. Cummins also has established Destination Zero, the company’s strategy to achieve its product decarbonization goals.

Together, they provide a path for Cummins’ aspiration to achieve zero emissions by 2050.

“Cummins has a history of turning challenges into opportunities, and this is a challenging time for our planet and society,” Rumsey said, speaking to the company’s shareholders and other stakeholders at the virtual meeting. “I believe this moment of truth will be Cummins’ moment to shine as we face the need to decarbonize our planet and continue to serve the critical applications our customers perform.”

POSITIONED TO MAKE AN IMPACT

The company’s wide-ranging product portfolio powers customers engaged in everything from on-highway trucking, marine and rail, to agricultural and construction equipment as well as generators providing emergency power to hospitals, data centers and schools.

Rumsey, named President and CEO in 2022, said decarbonization is a growth opportunity for Cummins. She said four key focus areas are critical to the company’s plans for climate action while delivering strong earnings:

•    Investing in innovation to power customer success.
•    Understanding customers’ needs.
•    Understanding how the company serves those needs today.
•    Delivering the right solution at the right time to better serve customers moving forward.

Rumsey, a nearly 25-year Cummins employee whose past roles included Chief Technical Officer and Chief Operating Officer, said having the right people is critical to all of these focus areas and she has vowed to keep people at the center of everything the company does. 

Cummins has consistently invested $1 billion or more annually in recent years to support research, development and engineering expenses.  Rumsey pledged a continued commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion to create dynamic work environments where a variety of ideas and perspectives can be brought to bear on customers’ challenges.

She said Cummins will also keep investing in developing great leaders who can uphold Cummins’ Leadership Culture of “inspiring and encouraging all employees to achieve their full potential.”

LEVERAGING OUR EXPERTISE

Finally, she said Cummins will remain committed to building stronger communities, recognizing that any company is only as strong as the communities where it does business, and its employees live and work.

“We will leverage our expertise to develop more sustainable solutions that support our customers’ success, positively impact our communities and protect our planet for future generations,” Rumsey said. “We'll continue to realize growth and strong returns by executing this strategy and delivering results for all of our stakeholders.

“It's an incredible opportunity and a responsibility,” she added. “And as CEO, I believe there's no company better positioned than Cummins to make a positive impact.”
 

The 3.62 megawatt (MW) solar farm at Cummins’ Rocky Mount Engine Plant (RMEP) in North Carolina was recognized with a 2023 Better Project Award. The recognition highlights projects in the energy department’s Better Buildings/Better Plants initiative for accomplishments in implementing and promoting practices, principles and procedures around sustainable energy management.

“Partners in the Better Plants Challenge are sharing their success and innovation to accelerate their energy efficiency,” said  Carolyn Snyder, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency at the DOE. “The Better Project awards highlight unique efforts to make meaningful headway in reducing energy, water, waste and greenhouse gas emissions.”  

Cummins has been part of the Better Plants Challenge since 2011.

As part of DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative, the Better Plants program works with leading manufacturers to boost their competitiveness through improvements in energy efficiency and emissions reductions. More than 270 industrial companies representing nearly 14% of the U.S. manufacturing energy footprint partner with the DOE and commit to reducing their energy intensity, typically by 25% over 10 years across all their U.S. operations.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The solar installation at Rocky Mount went on-line in September of 2022. Located on 14 acres adjacent to the plant, it is capable of producing around 5.6 million kilowatt hours of energy annually, which goes to the manufacturing facility to reduce electricity purchased from the grid.

The renewable energy generated by the solar installation is equivalent to carbon sequestered by 1,946 acres of U.S. forests annually. A solar installation in Beijing, China, is the only solar array larger than Rocky Mount's within Cummins.

Unique to RMEP, the project uses solar tracking panels allowing the panels to arc and track the sun as it rises and sets. This increases system efficiency without having to install more panels. The tracking panels were installed with ground mounts due to the project having available space and the ability to maximize system size for optimal exposure.

THE PUSH FOR SOLAR

Cummins has been putting a major push on including solar in the company’s energy mix to help meet the goals in Cummins’ PLANET 2050 environmental sustainability strategy. The strategy includes the 2030 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from facilities and operations by 50% as well as the aspiration to achieve zero emissions in the company’s operations and products by 2050.

To date, Cummins has completed 65 solar array installations at 49 locations around the world, from Australia to North America. Thirty-nine of these projects have been completed since 2019, with 18 installations in India, where Cummins has its largest solar footprint.

“We’re very proud of the work that has been accomplished at Rocky Mount and around the world,” said Laura Jones, Cummins’ Director of Eco-Efficiency for Facilities and Operations. “But we also know we have a lot of work remaining to reach our 2030 goal, and improving energy efficiency will be key.”
 

As the world prepares to celebrate Earth Day Saturday, here are five of the many ways the company is working to improve the environment: 

PLANET 2050

Unveiled in 2019, the company’s environmental sustainability strategy includes nine goals timed to 2030 and the aspiration to completely power customer success with zero-emission products by 2050. The strategy’s 2030 goals include partnering with customers to reduce Scope 3 lifetime greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from products in the field by 55 million metric tons and producing net water benefits that exceed Cummins’ annual water use in all company regions.

DESTINATION ZERO

Cummins’ strategy for product decarbonization, aligned to PLANET 2050, was rolled out to employees in 2022.  The strategy calls for making meaningful reductions in carbon emissions through advanced internal combustion technologies widely accepted by the market today, while continuing to invest in and advance zero emission technologies ahead of widespread market adoption.

ACCELERA BY CUMMINS

Accelera by Cummins is the new brand for Cummins’ former New Power business segment, launched in March 2023. Accelera is an energy technology leader committed to securing a sustainable future for the industries that keep the world running. Its diverse portfolio of zero-emission solutions includes battery systems, fuel cells, ePowertrain systems and electrolyzers critical to producing no-carbon green hydrogen.

FUEL AGNOSTIC ENGINES

Cummins in 2022 unveiled the industry’s first unified, fuel-agnostic internal combustion powertrain platforms. This technology helps fleets reduce carbon emissions today by enabling vehicles to run on low- to zero-carbon fuels. The platform utilizes the internal combustion engine technology that fleets are already familiar with while also applying a high level of parts and integration commonality across fuels including diesel, natural gas, hydrogen and other fuel applications.

CUMMINS WATER WORKS

This July, the multi-million dollar Cummins Water Works program will celebrate its second anniversary of addressing the global water crisis by advancing water security in the communities where Cummins employees live and work. In partnership with leading water experts like The Nature Conservancy and Water.org, Cummins Water Works has helped more than 500,000 people around the world, providing about 6 billion gallons in annual water benefits to communities.

The list honors companies demonstrating business integrity through best-in-class ethics, compliance and governance practices. Ethisphere is a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices.

“Ethics matter," said Ethisphere CEO Erica Salmon Byrne. “Organizations that commit to business integrity through robust programs and practices not only elevate standards and expectations for all but also have better long-term performance.”

“We continue to be inspired by the World’s Most Ethical Companies honorees and their dedication to making real impact for their stakeholders and displaying exemplary values-based leadership,” the Ethisphere leader added. “Congratulations to Cummins for earning a place in the World’s Most Ethical Companies Community.”

Cummins was one of 135 honorees, spanning 19 countries and 49 industries. The list is grounded in Ethisphere’s proprietary Ethics Quotient, the World’s Most Ethical Companies’ assessment process, which includes a more than 200-question survey on the company’s ethical and social practices regarding environmental, social and governance matters.

Ethics and the importance of ethical behavior have been emphasized at Cummins since the earliest days of the more than 103-year-old global power technology leader. Today, the Cummins Code of Business Conduct guides employees on ethical behavior around issues ranging from diversity, equity and inclusion; to competing fairly and honestly and avoiding conflicts of interest.

Employees worldwide are required to comply with the code, which is built around 10 ethical principles starting with “We will follow the law everywhere” and ending with the 10th principle, “We will create a culture where employees take responsibility for ethical behavior.”

Employees can report potential code or policy violations in multiple ways. They can use Cummins’ external Ethics website, call the company’s Ethics Helpline, send an email to the Ethics and Compliance function or simply talk to their supervisor, Human Resources representative or a member of the company’s Legal function.

The company has a strict no-retaliation policy for employees reporting potential code violations in good faith.

Cummins’ Ethics and Compliance Function in 2022 oversaw mandatory ethics training on 10 different areas, including anti-bribery, avoiding conflicts of interest, preventing money laundering and more.